In the end, it was the highest-ranked opponent that proved the easiest test for Washington University’s volleyball team.

Skyler Kessler | Student Life

Alex Sheredy, pictured here making one of her eight kills against Cornell College at the Baden Invite on September 12th, helped the Bears win three out of their four games this weekend at the Emory National Invitational tournament.

During a weekend that saw parity among the fraternity of top-ranked teams, No. 6 Wash. U. used a resounding three-set victory over No. 2 Calvin College to stake its claim as one of the country’s leading contenders for the Division III title.

The upset victory over Calvin came on the heels of the Bears’ five-set comeback victory over No. 10 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, giving Wash. U. two wins in as many games against top-10 teams this year.

The Bears (13-1) couldn’t make it a perfect trifecta the next day as they lost to No. 9 California Lutheran University, their first defeat of the year, but they rebounded with a win over Wheaton College to finish the Emory National Invitational with a winning record.

It was the second consecutive year that Wash. U. defeated a higher-ranked Calvin squad, after the Bears won in four sets over the No. 1 Knights last season. This year, the Bears didn’t need a fourth set—after leading for most of the first two sets, they trailed 10-2 before coming back.

Calvin had multiple set-point opportunities, but a series of kills from junior Rexi Sheredy and attack errors from the Knights propelled Wash. U. to victory, 25-22, 29-27, 27-25.

That comeback was “huge,” head coach Vanessa Walby said, because this weekend offered an opportunity to see how the team responded in tense situations.

“We know mentally what it takes to get past some of these big teams,” she said.

Walby praised the team’s defense in sparking both that third-set win and in the comeback effort against CMS earlier in the day. In that match, the Bears trailed two sets to one but limited the Athenas to a .119 hitting percentage in the last two sets.

Wash. U. ended the fourth set on a 17-6 run and carried that momentum to the decisive fifth, where they combined their best offensive and defensive performances of the match en route to a 15-10 win.

Against top teams, Walby said, “It’s rarely the offense that’s going to win the match. We were pretty scrappy and disciplined on defense. In most of our comebacks, it was because we were outworking them on hustle plays.”

That defensive success didn’t materialize against Cal Lutheran: In its first 11 games of the season, Wash. U. hadn’t allowed an opponent to hit better than .180, but both Calvin and Cal Lutheran exceeded that number (.226 and .206, respectively).

Combined with not bearing down on defense, an error-prone attack led to Wash. U.’s first loss of the year. Normally, the team grows more aggressive on offense when it falls behind, junior middle hitter Caroline Dupont said.

“A lot of times when you’re down, you get scared of making a mistake, but that’s not the case with our hitters,” she said.

But against Cal Lutheran, the Bears’ aggression backfired, and too many hits missed the lines and fell out of bounds: In the third set, Wash. U. tallied more errors than kills.

Across the weekend, though, Dupont was satisfied with the team’s offensive effort from all positions on the court.

“We have such a versatile team that we don’t have to depend on just one person to get through a tough time. We all contribute and that’s how we’re able to pull off getting these comebacks,” she said.

Walby offered similar praise for the team’s aggression.

“I think our offense is flying right now. We run a really fast-paced offense, which I don’t think a lot of teams are used to,” she said, noting the team’s varied attack made it harder to scout.

“Our middles played extremely well this weekend. Our middles are involved in every single play…so I always say we’ll always be as good as our middles,” she added. “They really stepped up this weekend.”

At one middle, Dupont was named to the all-tournament team after posting 45 kills and a .333 hitting percentage, and at the other, senior Jackie Nelligan nearly matched her teammate with 36 kills and added 15 block assists to move into sixth in that category in the school’s all-time leaderboard.

Senior setter Allison Zastrow also made moves up the leaderboard, joining the top 10 in assists with a pass to Dupont in the second set against CMS. Through Sept. 13’s games, Zastrow led all of Division III in total assists, and she added 159 to her ledger over the weekend.

Although Wash. U. lost its first game of the year, it wasn’t the only highly ranked team to squander its undefeated status at the tournament. Elsewhere in the invitational, No. 1 Emory University defeated Cal Lutheran but lost to both Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Calvin, in a rematch of the Eagles’ win over the latter earlier in the season.

Cal Lutheran, despite losing to Emory, also beat Calvin, meaning each of the four top-10 teams in the tournament both won and lost at least one game against its high-ranked peers.

For Walby, the mixed results are indicative of how evenly matched those top teams are—and what a potential postseason run past those teams might require.

“In the top 10, anybody can beat anybody on any given day. We’re all pretty talented teams right now, but you see what kind of grit your team has and their ability to come back and how they react in difficult situations,” she said.